


Rewind

by iamrhinoceros



Category: Psych (TV 2006)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe, Bullying, Episode: s01e05 9 lives, Episode: s01e10 From the Earth to Starbucks, Episode: s03e11 Lassie Did a Bad Bad Thing, Happy Ending, Homophobic Language, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Magical Realism, One Shot, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:08:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25945597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamrhinoceros/pseuds/iamrhinoceros
Summary: For Shawn, life is an endless choose your own adventure story. Who needs self-control when you always have an undo button?The only problem? It doesn’t seem to work on Lassiter.
Relationships: Carlton Lassiter/Shawn Spencer
Comments: 41
Kudos: 200





	Rewind

**Author's Note:**

> CW: Internalized homophobia, homophobic language, bullying.
> 
> This is my first Psych fic, and one of my first times writing fanfic in over a decade. After reading nearly every completed Shassie fic on AO3 (you think I am exaggerating...) I am excited, and a little nervous, to finally contribute my own story to this fandom.
> 
> Huge thank you to Otava for beta-reading and basically pep-talking my perfectionist self into finally posting this thing.
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

It’s a Thursday in mid-December, already getting dark outside as parents file into the school for the annual winter concert. Shawn has stayed after school to see Gus’ super important and life-changing solo, the supportive best friend that he is. Unfortunately for him and his sanity, the choir is last up, and watching the middle school orchestra stumble through _Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy_ is boring him to tears.

He wanders out of the auditorium, mid-squeak of a god-awful clarinet line, to the mostly empty front entrance, where two small huddles of teachers and parents are standing around chatting. Distantly, he hears a cacophony of band instruments practicing thirty different parts at once. Faced with the rare opportunity to explore the empty hallways, he follows the sound behind the auditorium. Further down the hall, he can hear the choir warming up.

Turning a corner, he just barely avoids running into another student and realizes that it is Miguel, a fellow seventh grader with him and Gus. He is wearing a crisp white button-down shirt and black slacks, slightly creased along the fold lines, the dress uniform of the band. “Hey Shawn,” he says with a small smile, looking up at him through long lashes.

“Hey yourself,” says Shawn, grinning back, feeling a familiar soaring sensation in his chest.

Shawn has never given the warm, swooping feeling much thought. He feels it when he meets eyes with pretty Melissa Martinez, a doe-eyed brunette one year his senior. He feels it, too, when her younger brother Miguel smiles brightly at him as he lugs his euphonium down the hallway. It has never seemed that strange to Shawn; they both have similar appeal in their slim, goldenrod shoulders, their dark, expressive eyes, their full lips.

There is something different about their interactions, though. Talking to Miguel doesn’t feel like talking to Gus or his other classmates. He knows the other boy must feel it too, judging by his expressions, and how they often end up like this, lingering together in quiet hallways.

“Gonna watch us play?” Miguel is asking, leaning on the wall and angling himself towards Shawn. “We’re on in about ten minutes.”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Shawn finds himself saying, although he wasn’t originally intending to return to the concert before the choir’s turn.

Miguel’s gaze drops to his mouth for the briefest of moments, then meets his eyes again, slightly flushed. “Come on,” he says, continuing his trek back the way Shawn came, Shawn trailing behind him.

They duck into the men’s bathroom, which is empty and almost blindingly bright compared to the dim hallway they’d come from. The other boy smiles at him again, leans forward into his space. “You know—”

The echoey bathroom explodes with laughter as two boys enter, also from the band judging by their attire. Miguel takes a quick step back. “Hey Mike,” one of them says, “We’re on in five.” Then he slips into a stall. The other boy busies himself in front of the urinal as Miguel rolls his eyes and leads them back outside.

“Hey, uh… want to meet up again back here after the band’s done?”

“Yes! Um, I mean, sure,” Shawn says a little over-eagerly, slightly flustered. “I could come after the choir’s second song.” His palms feel sweaty, and he surreptitiously wipes them on his jeans.

“Perfect,” the other boy is saying, then he’s giving him a wave as he turns back towards the source of all the noise.

As planned, Shawn slips back out of the auditorium after Gus finishes his solo, heading back down the music hallway, which is now empty. Most of the band students have either gone home or filed into the back of the auditorium. Miguel has the door to one of the practice rooms cracked open, and he waves to get Shawn’s attention.

Giddily, Shawn slips into the tiny room with the other boy, who presses the door shut and lowers the blind. There is barely room to stand, between the upright piano, a small bench, and a broken music stand, so they crowd into each other’s space.

Surrounded by soundproofing panels, it is very quiet. For Shawn, the world seems narrowed down to just the other boy’s lips. Miguel apparently has the same idea, hooking a thumb into one of Shawn’s belt loops and pulling him forward, closing the distance between them.

It’s pure bliss for about twenty seconds, then the door pops open. “Mickey?”

Shawn is shoved across the room, hand flying out to steady himself and playing a dissonant set of notes from the high end of the piano. Melissa is gaping at them, two other girls peering over her shoulders through the gap in the door.

“Get away from me!” Miguel spits then, scrambling from the room. Melissa turns to glare at Shawn for a moment, then takes off after him. The other girls are whispering to one another, still staring into the practice room.

A storm of emotions hits Shawn all at once. He slams the door shut in their faces, wipes his mouth roughly with the back of his arm, suppresses a sudden shudder of tears.

\---

Friday morning, Shawn is aware of a different kind of tension around him as he passes through the double doors of the middle school. He catches curious stares and whispers as he makes his way to his locker.

His heart sinks as he spots a group of 7th and 8th grade boys gathered outside his locker. They have pried it open, and his textbooks and notebooks lie scattered up and down the hallway.

“Hey look, it’s the fag,” one of them says. He ignores them, bending to pick up a notebook, his math textbook. His copy of _To Kill a Mockingbird_ , its corner now dented in.

Apparently the boys don’t like being ignored. One of them, a towering 8th grader Shawn recognizes as part of Melissa’s friend group, shoves him up against the row of lockers opposite his.

“Get off of me,” he gasps, shoving the other boy back.

“Hey faggot, what’s wrong, your book got bent?” He grabs at the novel, dangling it high over his head.

“Ha, get it, bent? Like you!” another boy says to his left, then shoves him face-first into the lockers. He feels the other boy slamming his hips repeatedly against his backside, and the group bursts out into raucous laughter.

“Mr. Ramirez, what are you doing?!” screeches a teacher. Instantly the group of boys scatter in all directions, dropping his belongings as they go. “Mr. Ramirez, you are coming with me! Get back here!”

The row of lockers is now empty, with the exception of Shawn and a hurricane of papers and textbooks. His science textbook lies open six feet away, with a big dirty shoeprint across one of the pages. Two groups of students are starting to gather, gawking at him from each end of the locker row. None come closer as Shawn hurries to gather up his things, tears prickling the corners of his eyes.

He starts shoving books and binders and loose papers haphazardly into his locker. Then he slams it shut, starting to turn away and then freezing.

Down the full length of his locker, someone has scrawled in ugly Sharpie letters: _FAGGOT_

Shawn stands rooted in place, staring at the word. He can feel the weight of a hundred sets of eyes all plastered to him and his defiled locker. He squeezes his eyes shut.

Suddenly, it feels like he’s falling. Gasping, his eyes fly back open, but he’s not falling at all. No, instead it feels like he’s turned around in a moving car, staring out the back window as everything rushes away from him, narrowing into a tiny point. Around him he sees the lockers, the band hallway, all zooming backwards like a VHS tape you rewind in the player. Miguel and himself, crammed together in the practice room. All the way back to quietly slipping out of the concert.

He’s standing in the hallway, the vague harmony of _Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy_ wafting out of the auditorium behind him. Without a second thought, he turns on his heel, away from the band hallway. The room is spinning. He is definitely going to be sick.

Instead he races to the bathroom, which is where Gus finds him over an hour later, slumped against the back of the largest stall, green in the face and knees pulled close to his chest.

Days later, when he returns to school, nobody gives him curious looks. His locker, he notices, is completely free of Sharpie marks. Everyone seems to have forgotten what happened outside his locker.

Miguel Martinez still sends him bright smiles as he passes in the hallway, like he always has. Shawn carefully avoids his eyes.

Shawn has always had an active imagination, so he can’t be certain that that moment in 7th grade is the first time it ever happens. But he is acutely, painfully aware of just how real those couple of days felt, now evaporated like a dream, gone to everyone except Shawn and his eidetic memory.

In English class, he runs his fingers over the cover of _To Kill a Mockingbird_ , its dented corner the one trace of an alternate reality.

\---

As he gets older, he tests his boundaries more and more.

If he rewinds a decision the moment after doing it, he has a seemingly limitless capacity to do so. He grows fluent in the winding paths of rewound dialogue, one-line zingers composed through several takes of a conversation.

His conversational skills suddenly accelerated, his popularity skyrockets. He is no longer the class goofball, aloof and detached. He finds himself intermingling with the older and more popular kids, ironically ending up ingrained in the same clique that Melissa Martinez seems to rule. Gus rides the wave along with him, as unbeknownst to him, Shawn is always careful to redo any conversation that might leave Gus on a lower footing.

Conversations are easy, a quick puzzle in reading people and responding in the way they want to hear. Snapping back decisions a moment after they are made and going down another path.

Rewinding other kinds of decisions is a lot harder. Sometimes the repercussions of a conversation don’t rear their ugly head for minutes, or even hours. Shawn can undo these decisions, too, but it takes a lot more out of him.

First, of course, is the complexity of the details. The further back he goes, the more he needs to remember, in excruciating detail, scrubbing back through the film roll of his mind. From the exact wording of long conversations, to the smallest of glances or gestures, it is exhausting to sustain perfect recall, especially when he ends up reliving the same conversations two, three, or sometimes many more times. Getting the smallest details off can have the most frustratingly random effects on the flow of a conversation, forcing him to snap back to the start, praying that his focus will be better this time around.

The other limiting factor is the nausea. The further back he has to unroll time, the more intensely sick he feels. It is years before he rewinds as far as he had in the 7th grade. After that event, he had spent two days in bed, getting up only to shakily empty the contents of his stomach into the toilet. Over and over.

\---

In high school, being one of the popular kids gives him, and by extension Gus, unprecedented access to parties. Alcohol, he quickly finds, makes the details fuzzy, out of his control.

He finds himself thinking, the first time he feels the warm buzz of alcohol dulling his senses, that this must be what it feels like to be normal.

Shawn soon finds that there is a certain point, somewhere between two and three drinks consumed within an hour, where the details begin to swim to the point of complete inability to rewind. Attempting just leads to an unchangeable repeat of the same decisions, unable to do or say anything to alter them.

So, naturally, most of his time spent drinking is in a race to this exact point.

It is freeing in its own way, being released from the ability to make everything perfect.

His peers have always found him funny, girls have found him charming for years. He is well-practiced in zingers and one-liners. It’s hardly difficult to impress those around him. He never has problems getting laid.

Still, he is always careful to stick to female company for his alcohol-fueled seduction.

\---

Much to Henry’s consternation, Shawn does not follow in his footsteps to become supercop after high school. Instead, he bounces around the country, going where his whims carry him, taking one odd job after another. He thrives on his sociability, lasting the longest in the gigs where his propensity for conversation works in his favor.

He waits tables in many cities, often the first work he can find. He knows just how to read his customers and what buttons to push for the highest possible tips, leaving the other servers jealous. For two weeks, he is a masseur, learning the trade through observation and rewinding a couple of unwitting customers’ sessions until he gets the pressure points just right. He is a pool boy at a sleepy Jewish country club, pursued by bored housewives two and three times his age. A stint as a pizza delivery boy, putzing around on his motorcycle and getting fired for chatting up the customers too long between stops. A bartender. For a week and a half he sells knives door to door, successful to a fault, canned out of suspicion that he is gaming the system or taking advantage of customers.

And, if he's honest with himself, he kind of is.

As he travels around the country, he often leaves a trail of heartbreak in his wake. He finds it hard to get attached, but that doesn’t stop people from trying to attach themselves anyway.

At times he feels the pull from other men, too. He doesn’t go looking for it, specifically, but when you notice _everything_ it’s hard not to notice lingering gazes from across the room, the unconscious mirroring and leaning in that others do when they are interested. Emboldened by anonymity, sometimes he presses further, sees where it leads. He can always rewind, right?

He relives his firsts over and over again, shuddering against these strangers, carefully allowing himself release.

Then, just as carefully, he rewinds these encounters each time, a deep coil of shame tightly clenching in his stomach.

Each time, he isn’t sure who he is using more: the nameless women he leaves heartbroken each time he jumps ship, or the nameless men who will never even remember their undone trysts.

\---

Shawn is, by his very nature, a keen cataloguer of details. But the older he gets, the more he finds his memory cluttered with the echoes of decisions he unwound. The longer he goes before bouncing to the next city, the more he finds himself confronted with moments that he unhappened.

Being back in the restless familiarity of Santa Barbara doesn’t make this any easier. Still, the psychic detective gig is the longest he’s ever managed to hold a job, plays perfectly into his conversational prowess. And as a plus he gets to hang out with his buddy Gus again, so it’s not all bad.

His new friends at the police station, too, keep things interesting. He enjoys his flirtatious banter with Juliet. She is sharp, a highly competent detective, and finds him charming to boot. It’s refreshing to use his conversational wit on someone he actually gives a shit about.

Then there’s Detective Lassiter. Ohhh boy, is he fun to provoke. Shawn has the time of his life seeing _just_ how far he can push Lassie. Sometimes he pushes too far, and rewinds, tones it down. But it is surprising just how much he can get away with.

\---

“Just thought you might wanna know that this thing here—not a suicide,” Shawn is saying, gesturing to the crime scene around them.

“Great, thanks for that. Really,” Lassiter says, irritation obvious across his features. “And thanks also for bringing a _snack_ to the crime scene.” God, his eyes are so blue. Shawn ducks his head, trying not to look into them too deeply, which is precisely when he spots the grease smudge on the floor.

He gasps, bringing a hand up over his heart. “Oh boy. Agh!” Drops to his knees, chopsticks and takeout container still gripped firmly in his other hand. It wouldn’t do to contaminate the crime scene. Sharp breaths, he really has to sell it. “I’m sensing, uh—” shakes his head, “I’m sensing there was someone here. Someone here, in the room with the victim when he died.” He blindly feels to his left, grabbing ahold of Lassiter’s leg.

Suddenly needing to balance on one leg, Lassiter stumbles, over-correcting and tipping forward onto Shawn, hands landing on each of his shoulders. “Cut the crap, Spencer,” he says, wrenching his leg out of Shawn’s grasp and sending his crispy noodles flying.

Rewind.

“Someone here, in the room with the victim when he died.” Lassiter groans, eyes lifting to the ceiling in frustration. Shawn knows exactly where he is aiming this time, lifting the detective’s leg in one smooth motion.

Bracing himself for the other man to lose balance, Shawn is pleasantly surprised that he balances much more easily this time. Huh.

“Someone with a—” Shawn’s free hand roams over the other man’s calf, and he tries not to let himself get distracted by the firm line of muscle he feels under his trousers. “—Sliver of grease on his or her shoe.” His hand closes around the smooth leather.

Lassiter kicks his leg free, knocking Shawn forward onto the victim’s coffee table.

“No! I’m not sensing a struggle,” Shawn discards the chopsticks, gesturing for the officers around him to wait because even though he’s not really psychic, he could sense how badly Lassiter is itching to drag him out of there from a mile away. “No struggle.” He thumps his head down onto the table, thinking. Leans back. “The door. Did you have to break down the door when you got here?”

“No, it was open, why?” Thank you, Juliet.

“No no no, don’t encourage him,” Lassiter says, and then he’s dragging him out of the house, one hand twisted in the back of his shirt and the other painfully pressing him forward from under his arm. “I want you off this property, _now_.”

“Hey, Lassie, no need to be so handsy.” This must have struck a chord, because the next thing Shawn knows, he is shoved up against the wall in the alcove outside the front door. Shawn gasps, and for a split second he is a foot shorter and being pressed face-first into orange lockers.

“ _You_ are telling _me_ —”

“Hey, Lassiter, chill,” Juliet is saying, pulling the detective back. Shawn shudders, suddenly supporting his own weight again and _oh god_ , was that a whimper? Two sets of eyes snap to him in concern.

No. Nope. Not happening.

He rewinds back to before Lassiter started manhandling him, and changes the course of the conversation, casting the officers’ attention to a cat obliviously grooming its privates.

Anything to pull those curious glances away from himself.

\---

One afternoon, he does a dramatic swoon right into Lassiter’s lap, and is astonished when he isn’t immediately shoved away.

So, of course, he proceeds to take it too far.

With the daring only possessed by a man armed with an undo button, after depositing himself in the man’s lap, he runs a hand up his chest. Then he keeps going, skirting his collarbone, up and around the side of the man’s face, turning it towards himself so he can playfully gaze into his eyes.

Which is exactly when Lassiter comes to his senses. He shoves Shawn right out of his lap, and on the way down he smacks the back of his head square into the chief’s desk.

It was probably only a matter of seconds that he was out, but when he opens his eyes, he finds himself looking up into four shocked faces. Gus has the warring emotions of a man both fearing his friend has a concussion and harboring deep embarrassment. Lassiter, to his credit, is kneeling right next to Shawn – of course he is closest, because he was the source of the momentum that got him there in the first place – peering down at him with a guilty expression.

And of course, Shawn’s first thought is _oh shit_. How long had it been? How many details had he lost? He blinks up at the others, considering as if in slow motion whether or not to rewind, and whether or not he could.

Then the reality of what he’d done immediately before being sent flying sets in, and he hastily rewinds.

Back on Lassiter’s lap, he frustratingly finds himself physically incapable of altering the motion that sent him tumbling in the first place. Sometimes a lack of detail just forces him to relive the inevitable. He grits his teeth, screws his eyes shut, and braces for impact.

But this time, as Lassiter shoves him away, he also solidly catches Shawn’s back with his other arm.

“Spencer,” he grounds out, letting go of him the moment Shawn’s balance stabilizes. “Get off my lap.”

Without another word, Shawn stiffly swings his legs down. Hastily, he retreats, a phantom pain leaving him rubbing the back of his head. Lassiter’s eyes follow him the whole way.

\---

Several weeks later, Shawn discovers Lassiter slumped over a table at Tom Blair’s Pub.

“Lassie?”

The detective startles, then brightens. “Spencer! Why am I surprised?”

“Why are you wasted?” Shawn draws closer, dropping into the seat across from him as he enthusiastically orders them another round of scotch.

“Listen… there is something I have _got_ to get off my chest.”

“What’s that?” drops carelessly out of his mouth. _Oh come on, you can do better_.

Rewind.

“Listen… there is something I have _got_ to get off my chest.”

“Is it your shirt? Please say no.” He almost grins at his own joke.

Lassiter ignores him, stares at him with the kind of intensity that can only be achieved by the truly shitfaced. “You… _astound_ me.”

“I know my psychic abilities can be startling to the uninitiated—”

“No, not that crock of crap. The other thing.” Lassiter waves dismissively, the motion knocking a glass off the table, where it shatters into a hundred pieces, drawing the attention of the tables around them.

Shawn rewinds, catches the glass, sets it back on the table. Nobody spares him a second glance this time, except Lassiter, who keeps on staring.

“Come again?” Shawn tries not to focus too closely on the detective’s big, dangerous blue eyes, gawking so earnestly at him from across the table.

“You know. The thing you just did.” He gestures a circular motion.

Distracted by those same eyes, Lassiter’s words occur to Shawn sluggishly. Wait, _what_ —

Lassiter leans across the table, adopting a conspiratorial whisper. “You know, how you change things.” He leans back just in time for the waitress to deliver his scotch. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

He feels his stomach drop.

As Lassiter downs the scotch in one quick motion, Shawn pushes back from the table abruptly, chair scraping angrily against the wood floor. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he forces out, staring wildly around the bar, memorizing the details he’s going to need to rewind.

“Wait—" He hears Lassiter say, just before he rewinds himself all the way back to the parking lot. Stumbling a few feet away from his motorcycle, he dry heaves over the bushes.

Gasping, he breathes heavily, bent at the waist, but manages to hold himself together. When he straightens himself, his eyes meet with a woman who quickly rushes towards the door. Fighting back the intense aftershocks of nausea that strike him every time he significantly diverges from the script, he shakily picks up his motorcycle helmet and straps it over his head.

He barely even registers his drive home. Shuffles through his apartment clutching a trash can. He falls into bed and doesn’t get up again until dinnertime the next day.

For Shawn, life is an endless choose your own adventure story, and he can always reroute himself. He doesn’t spend much time thinking about that conversation in the bar. As far as he’s concerned, he’s rewound it. It never happened.

\---

As frequent consultants, Gus and Shawn find themselves invited to the SBPD’s annual holiday party. Gus leaves his side almost immediately, chatting up a girl in forensics. Shawn is no stranger to mingling, so he grabs a drink and _mingles_.

A few cups of spiked punch into the evening, the details are getting fuzzy, but Shawn finds himself shamelessly flirting with Juliet. He cracks a joke that ends with a surprise swat to her ass. When she yelps he rewinds, telling the joke slightly differently, no smack this time. She still ends up huffing and melting into the crowd soon after. Shawn cranes his neck to look after her.

“Spencer, what are you doing?”

Oh, but if Juliet is gone, _this will do_. Shawn turns to face the taller man, sways a little off balance. The detective is glaring at him.

“Detective O’Hara deserves more respect…” Lassiter’s lecture drones on. Shawn’s eyes get caught at the second button of the other man’s shirt. He has let the top button undone, his chest hair just peeking out. His stomach flip flops while he fixates there.

For some reason his mouth has gone dry. He licks his lips.

“I think you’ve had a bit too much to drink, Spencer. I’m cutting you off.” Before Shawn is aware of what is happening, Lassiter has snatched the red cup out of his grasp.

“Aw, Lassie, no need to be such a sourpuss,” Shawn says, hiccupping. He lifts his arm as if to grab back the cup, but his hand makes a detour, landing flat on the detective’s chest. “I see the stern bush is making an appearance tonight.”

“Excuse me?”

Shawn runs his palm up, over the buttons, his fingers carding through the other man’s chest hair. He’s warm. Lassiter’s eyebrows fly up, and he takes a step back, other arm coming up to grip Shawn’s.

“Oops,” says Shawn, then rewinds, feeling that sinking sensation of shame in his gut.

“I think you’ve had a bit too much to drink, Spencer. I’m cutting you off.” Lassiter looks up at the cup he’s snatched from him, then back to Shawn.

Shawn holds tight to his traitorous arm, keeping his elbow firmly pinned to his side. “You can keep that,” he says, gesturing wildly, then spins on his heel and starts making his way across the room.

He’s reached the level of inebriation where continued imbibing seems to be the only logical course of action. Even the danger of giving into his man-love impulses doesn’t seem to be overcoming the siren call of the punch bowl. Buzzed as he is, he is still aware of Lassiter’s presence behind him, trailing after him. As Shawn reaches the table with the food and drinks, the man says, “Nope,” and grips Shawn’s shoulder hard, steering him into the hallway.

There, he hesitates a moment, then pushes him into the records room, shutting the door behind them.

“Oooh, guess someone’s looking for someplace a little more _intimate_.” Shawn feels sloshy, tipping back into the door, knocking the blinds askew. At Lassie’s exasperated expression he rewinds hastily. _Have a little self-control for once_. _Fucking get it together_.

They are back in the hallway. Sighing, Lassiter pushes him into the records room, turning and shutting the door behind them.

“Oooh, guess someone’s—” Shawn snaps his mouth shut. Tips forward, then straightens himself again. The blind jostles again behind him.

“What the hell has gotten into you, Spencer?” Lassiter puts his hands on each of Shawn’s shoulders, pinning him lightly to the door to still his swaying.

“Just your penetrating blue eyes,” Shawn says. “Heh, _penetrating_.” Lassiter growls at him. “Shit,” Shawn says, barely even realizing he’s spoken it aloud.

Rewind.

“What the hell has gotten into you, Spencer?” Is it Shawn's imagination, or is Lassiter’s shove a little rougher this time around?

He clamps his mouth shut, shakes his head.

“Listen,” Lassiter starts, then ducks his head, hands still pressing Shawn’s shoulders to the back of the door. “This thing you do? It’s fucking exhausting.” Shawn opens his mouth, but can’t think of anything to say. “You are drunk, Spencer. Cut the crap and go home.”

Lassiter’s head is still hanging between them, so Shawn can only see his hair, the tips of the detective’s slightly flushed ears, the rise and fall of his shirt as he takes measured breaths. Shawn’s heart is pounding painfully in his own chest. Lassiter knows. Cringing, he replays the conversation at the bar in his head, the exchange he had wished to forget. Lassiter _knows_.

He can smell the other man’s shampoo. Coconut. Faintly, but he is leaning pretty close. Shawn resists the desire to lean forward and sniff deeply. Or wait, does he resist? Maybe he just rewinds it. He can barely tell anymore, so used to giving in to any flight of fancy his mind dreams up.

Oh no, he definitely did smell it. Lassiter is backing up, dropping his arms. Wait—

He rewinds. Lassiter is pinning him to the door again. “This thing you do? It’s fucking exhausting, _Spencer_!” The detective gives him another little shove, looking helplessly up at him.

“Just your penetrating blue eyes,” Shawn echoes quietly, realizing faintly that he’s rewound this conversation so many times that he’s lost track of where they are. It doesn’t seem to matter because those bright eyes are locked with his.

Suddenly, Shawn surges forward, lips connecting with—connecting with Lassiter’s jawline, five o’clock shadow catching on his chapped upper lip. Lassiter has turned his head. Lightly pushes the other man back.

Shawn feels panicky. What is he _doing_? He feels the thrum of shame heavy in his chest, pressure building inside his ears. He starts cataloguing the low hum of the copier, the haphazard stacks of filing boxes around them—

“No! Wait,” Lassiter says, squeezing his shoulders. “It’s okay, it’s okay. Please, Spencer.” He pulls him into a light embrace, patting his back in an unpracticed way Shawn is sure is meant to be reassuring. It is, but only slightly. “Let me take you home. Instead of running away—”

“I’m not running from anything,” Shawn hisses. Teeters on the edge of starting another rewind. _Who the hell am I kidding_. He rocks back and forth, heels to toes, biting his lip.

 _Oh god_ , and there was no undo. Somehow, Lassiter would still remember either way. Just like he remembered every other reckless action Shawn had taken at crime scenes, at the bar, right here in the station—

Shawn’s hesitation has stretched long enough that Lassiter seems to let go of a breath he had been holding. He leans back, arms dropping. “Okay. Right. Come on Spencer, let’s get you home.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, voice small.

“It’s alright, everything is fine.” He tugs Shawn gently to the side, and opens the records room door, ushering him out of it.

They are silent then, exiting the precinct through the narrow side entrance. Thankfully, they don’t run into anyone. Shawn tags along behind Lassiter obediently, for once not filling the air with chatter. When they reach the Crown Vic, he wordlessly climbs into the passenger side.

On the drive, Shawn stays quiet, eyes closed, just giving the other man occasional directions. When Lassiter pulls up to the building, he grunts, “Spencer, you gave me the wrong directions. This is a dry cleaner’s.”

Shawn pops out of the car, fiddles with his keys and shoves one into the lock, concentrating on stilling his shaking hands. “ _Was_ a dry cleaner’s. ”

Lassiter trails after him, rolling his eyes. He pauses on the threshold, taking in the clothing conveyor and an ancient popcorn machine. He squares his shoulders, hands in his pockets. He doesn’t come any further inside. “Are you going to be alright?”

“Why don’t you stay with me and find out?” Shawn purrs from right beside him. Lassiter draws back. Shawn grimaces.

Rewind.

“Are you going to be alright?” Lassiter sighs again, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Spencer, please.”

“I’m sorry,” he says again. This is agonizing. With Lassiter, as with anyone else, the moment something occurs to him, he has the follow that thread and see where it goes. Except with the detective, he can’t back out of the paths he has chosen.

“It’s alright,” the other man repeats. “I’m going home.” He takes a step back into the parking lot. “I’ll see you… soon.” He pushes the door shut.

Shawn slumps down onto his bed, running his hands over his face. Distantly, he hears the slam of a car door, the roar of an engine coming to life. Then it fades away.

He’s made so many mistakes, so many not undoable mistakes. Now Lassiter _knows_. Knows this hateful thing about him.

\---

If Shawn spends a few more nights a week hopping from club to bar, waiting to catch eyes with handsome strangers, well, no one has to know. He’s broke, but that has never stopped him. He chats up the bartender or other guests, gets free drinks, passes those drinks straight off to other patrons. He is great at acting buzzed, but there will be no alcohol for him tonight, thank you.

And if he is choosy about his anonymous partners, responding the most to men and women with short, dark hair and piercing, light-colored eyes, well, that’s nobody’s business either.

“Where are you staying?” the other man gasps. Shawn is currently attached to his neck, sucking out more soft noises. They are in a smoke-filled hallway up a stairwell that leads to the bathrooms, thumping bass still reverberating below them. Shawn has to think for a moment before he remembers that he has told this one he’s from out of town, visiting on business.

“With a friend,” he says vaguely, licking a stripe up the man’s neck. “You’re probably closer.”

“Okay, yeah,” he says. He leads Shawn back down the stairwell and they leave through a smoker’s exit into the alley behind the club.

No one is out here, which makes sense, it’s January. Somewhere above them, a neon light buzzes. There is the sound of distant traffic whooshing wetly down the street, only a small slice of which is visible at the end of the alley. Opposite that exit, there is a stack of pallets and an industrial sized garbage bin.

It’s not the most romantic setting, but it will do. He pulls the other man to the other side of the bin, where anyone exiting behind them won’t see them. There is about a three foot gap between the other side of the bin and the neighboring building.

The other man catches on quickly, kissing him again even before they’ve reached the secluded patch of concrete. Shawn isn’t one to waste any time either, and blindly tugs down the man’s zipper, reaching past cotton fabric and wrapping his fingers around the other man.

“Oh,” he huffs, grinding into Shawn’s hand and his upper thigh, head thrown back and eyes squeezed shut.

Shawn, on the other hand, keeps his eyes open the entire time.

For several more minutes they shudder together, against the cool concrete wall behind the club, clouds of their breath rising away from them in the chill air. Both reach release, tightly pressed to one another’s warmth.

The other man smiles broadly at him then, as he adjusts himself, zips back up. Oh god, Shawn hates when they want to talk after. “Listen, you said your name was Shawn, right? I know you’re only here a few days, but can we—”

“Nope,” Shawn cuts him off quickly. Then he’s rewinding, back through the door of the club, up the stairs and back down, right back to the edge of the bar where he’d passed his free drink off to the smiling, dark-haired man.

He walks right past him.

\---

Of course it’s fucking Drimmer who sends everything to hell.

There is an expanse of time between when the crooked cop sucker punches him and when he wakes up aching on Lassiter’s couch that is unrecoverable. It could have been an hour, hell, it could have been _minutes_ , but each time Shawn rewinds, he just wakes up groaning again, sprawled sideways on the sofa.

For the fourth or fifth time, Drimmer is sitting opposite him, holding up the gun, the conversation replaying around Shawn on autopilot. “Shut up, Spencer. You might be able to smartass your way out of some things, but you know what? I don't see that happening here.”

Shawn touches the scrape where Drimmer’s fist had collided with his cheek and winces. “Oh, so you’re the psychic now.”

“Shut. Up.”

With nothing else to do, Shawn follows the tense conversation for another ten, fifteen minutes. With the barrel of the gun shoved up against his forehead, Shawn holds his hands in the air as Drimmer digs in his pocket for his cell phone. As he taps away a message, Shawn can see what the other man is setting into motion. A setup, a murder-suicide that will close the door on Lassiter’s innocence once and for all.

Shawn looks around the room, vibrating nervously on the couch, leg bouncing up and down like a spasm. Drimmer, who is in the middle of writing something, turns to him and roars, “Fucking hold still, or I’ll shoot you before he even gets here!”

After what feels like an hour, Lassiter swings open the door, immediately chastising Shawn for breaking into his house. Shawn casts his eyes to the side, where Lassiter catches sight of the other detective.

“Drimmer?”

“I can't believe you thought that text was actually from me,” Shawn grumbles from the couch. Maybe he could distract Drimmer. “It lacked all nuance, my signature mocking tone, and was utterly devoid of emoticons.” Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to work—the only one who seems distracted, in fact, is Lassiter. Not the best thing to be happening with a gun in his face.

Shawn raises his eyebrows at him, and he quickly turns back to the other man. “Why?”

“Because, he’s in business with _Cinco Reyes_ ,” Shawn explains. “And when you brought in Chavez, business hours were over, sweetheart.”

“I always knew there was something off about you, Drimmer, but I didn’t figure you for dirty.” Lassiter smiles grimly. “You are one lowlife, scum-suckin’ bastard, aren’t you?”

“I know how this works, Lassiter,” Drimmer says, almost bored. “Trying to throw me off with one of your stupid little insults. Uh-uh.” He shakes his head. Lassiter grits his teeth. “Well, fellas,” he flashes a note folded over and clipped with a pen. “Might as well get on with it.” Drops the note onto Lassiter’s coffee table.

“What’s that?”

“That’s your suicide note.” At this, Shawn scoffs. “It explains how Spencer psychically figured out it was you.”

“I believe the term you’re looking for is _divined_ ,” Shawn cuts in flippantly. Drimmer smacks him upside the head with the butt of his gun. “Ow!” He sees stars.

Lassiter winces and takes a step back. Shawn rewinds, the new pain blessedly vanishing.

“What’s that?” Lassiter echoes. His eyes dart from Drimmer to Shawn, then back to Drimmer. He retakes his slow step back, towards the kitchen.

“That’s your suicide note.” Shawn stays silent. “It explains how Spencer psychically figured out it was you.”

Oh, but if it doesn’t take a lot of willpower not to correct him.

“Spencer figured out it was you who killed Chavez and Loggins, and he was going to go to the chief with it. So you shot him.” Lassiter works his lip between his teeth. “You two being former lovers and all, you were _overwhelmed_ with guilt.”

Shawn’s heart skips a beat, and he gapes at Lassiter for a second behind Drimmer’s back. They meet eyes, just for a moment, before Lassiter’s eyes are trained back on Drimmer. He can’t believe how calm Lassiter is. “Called misinformation. He’s hoping they won’t look too closely.”

Drimmer smirks.

“You are one sick twist, Drimmer.”

He huffs. “I know.” Then turns the gun to Shawn.

“Whoa whoa whoa,” Shawn shuffles backwards, scrambling deeper into the couch. “Wait, wait, wait, wait. Just wait. I’m getting something, I’m sensing something.” Shawn word vomits, flailing his hand in the direction of the uninjured side of his forehead. Out of the corner of his eyes, he sees Lassiter edging away further. What’s he going to do, run for it?

“Do you _ever stop talking_?”

Behind Drimmer, Lassiter dives into his counter. He wrenches open the breadbox, digging between a pack of bagels and half a loaf of bread.

Drimmer turns, points the gun back at Lassiter. “Hey detective, what’re you doing there? Looking for one of your spare pistols?” Lassiter spins back around, eyes wild. “Uh-uh. Cops found all your guns.”

Shawn pounces on Drimmer from behind. God, the man is built like an ox. Drimmer knocks him back and Shawn lands in the center of the coffee table, which collapses under him. “I’m fucking sick of you,” he growls, stepping forward, pistol centered on Shawn’s chest.

“No!” Lassiter snatches for the gun, but Drimmer points it straight down and shoots his foot. “Agh!” A hiss of pain, but Lassiter is still struggling with him for the gun—

Shawn rewinds.

“Do you _ever stop talking_?”

Lassiter looks down at his foot, rotating his ankle in wonder. Then, coming to his senses, he edges towards the island.

Drimmer glances over his shoulder. “Hey, stop it! What’re you doing?” Again, he turns the gun on Lassiter. After a split second of hesitation, he shoves a hand into a bowl of pistachios. Is he nuts?

Astonishingly, he pulls a gun out of the bowl, but it’s too late, Drimmer has already shot him low in the stomach. Staggering, Lassiter drops the gun.

Shawn gasps and rewinds again, fighting back a wave of nausea. He’s not sure whether it’s from rewinding so much or the sight of Lassiter’s blood.

“Do you _ever stop talking_?”

Shawn stares across the room at Lassiter, who is staring right back. There is another gun in the bowl on the counter. He just needs to keep Drimmer distracted long enough for Lassiter to get to it.

Lassiter grabs the bowl and ducks behind the island. There is the sound of several hundred pistachios scattering across the tile floor.

“Hey, stop it! What’re you doing?” Shawn is startled when Drimmer grabs him and tugs him to his feet, rounding the island with the psychic as his human shield. Shawn grimaces. Lassiter’s a good shot, but Drimmer sure isn’t leaving him much to work with.

Lassiter stands, having moved to the opposite end of the island. “Drop him, Drimmer.”

Drimmer laughs. “Make me.” Shawn fights the urge to squeeze his eyes shut. This was going to end with him shot. Maybe that was the only way.

“Let’s just take a moment to talk about this.”

“No time, detective. We’ve already been talking for too long.” Shawn feels rather than sees Drimmer turn the gun on his forehead. “Drop the gun. Sit on the god damn couch.”

The color drains from Lassiter’s face. Slowly and carefully, he sets the gun back down on the counter. Hands up, he backs to the couch, never taking his eyes off Shawn’s.

When the backs of his shins meet the couch, he folds them, sinking into it. Drimmer shoves Shawn in the same direction, and he takes a stumbling step over the coffee table to avoid tripping on it, dropping beside the detective.

“Now,” Drimmer says, smirking crookedly. “Look deep into each other’s eyes, while I blow your brains out.”

Shawn rewinds.

“Do you _ever stop talking_?”

Shawn clutches his stomach, reeling. With confusion and obvious disgust, Drimmer steps away from him. Distracted, he doesn’t notice Lassiter quietly extracting the gun from the bowl until it’s already trained on him.

“How did you—”

A shot rings out. Shawn can’t help it, he flinches, arms over his head. Then gasps because _no_ , he needs _details_ —

Breathing heavily, Lassiter steps up to him, pulls him sharply away from Drimmer, who has stumbled backwards, a bullet hole in his shoulder.

Behind him, the door bursts open, but he never takes his eyes off Shawn.

\---

Drimmer is patched up and locked away, and most of the officers working overtime have gone home for the night. To Gus’ bewilderment, Shawn insists on staying behind at the station.

“Dude, you were about _this_ close to getting your brains splattered across Lassie’s living room sofa. What do you mean you don’t want a ride home?”

“Maybe I feel safer surrounded by all these big, strong police officers,” Shawn says, then second guesses himself at the look on Gus’ face. He hastily rewinds.

“What do you mean you don’t want a ride home?”

“I just want to check in with our favorite detectives first. Then I’ll go home,” he promises him.

“Shawn, your motorcycle is at the Psych office,” the other man reminds him. “What’s your plan? You gonna sleep under Juliet’s desk until the morning?”

“I’ll figure something out,” Shawn says vaguely.

“I’m not coming back to get you at the ass crack of dawn.”

“Me? I’d never ask you to do that buddy,” Shawn reassures him. “Go home and get your beauty sleep.”

Gus rolls his eyes, but eventually relents, leaving him in the hallway.

Truth be told, he doesn’t have a plan for how he’s getting home tonight, not really. He rounds the corner to the bullpen, pausing as he sees Lassiter leaning heavily into one hand, hair askew, as he reads a file.

“You know, technically I think you’re still out on leave,” Shawn says, sidling up to the desk. Lassiter glances up at him before flipping the file closed.

“My house is a crime scene,” he says shortly, massaging his temple.

“You could… stay with me tonight,” Shawn says quietly, stooping so they are at eye level across the desk. He feels that unwelcome swooping in his stomach. Maybe he’s still sick.

“At the dry cleaner’s?” Lassiter scoffs.

“At _my apartment_.”

The other man is silent for a beat. “And what then?”

“Uh—what do you mean?” Shawn stutters.

“You tried to kiss me once,” Lassiter says, so quiet that Shawn almost misses it.

“Um.” Shawn itches to rewind, but it’s no use. And, honestly, after what they’ve been through, Lassiter deserves more than that. He squeezes his eyes shut. Opens them again. The other man is patiently waiting. “I don’t want to talk about that here.”

“Okay,” the detective says. And suddenly he’s standing, pulling on his suit jacket.

Sooner than Shawn would like, they are crossing the threshold into the Fluff N’ Fold, and Shawn is pulling the door shut behind them. He turns to Lassiter, a conversation he’s been rehearsing in his head on the way over on the tip of his tongue.

 _Whoa, there_. Lassiter is much closer than he was expecting. One of his arms settles on his waist, and the other snakes up his neck, cradles the back of his head. Shawn notices just how comfortably his face fits into the crook of Lassiter’s neck. After a moment, he wraps his own arms around the detective’s back.

“Is this okay?” Lassiter is murmuring into his shirt.

Shawn breathes, taking in a scent that is uniquely _Lassie_. It smells like gunpowder and coconut shampoo. “Yes,” he says, slightly belated.

“I was so scared Drimmer was going to shoot you,” Lassiter mutters. His forehead is heavy on Shawn’s shoulder.

“He shot _you_. Twice.”

“I know, but you fixed it. I barely felt it.”

Shawn hums.

Lassiter rotates his head, and with a gasp Shawn realizes his lips are on his neck. “When you kissed me, it wasn’t that I didn’t want you,” he says quietly, each word tickling his throat. “You were drunk. I didn’t want you to do anything you’d regret.”

He can’t help it, he lets out a bitter laugh. “You’re too late for that.”

Lassiter pulls back slightly, leaning so their foreheads are pressed together. Shawn tries to look at him, but he’s so close he goes cross-eyed. “Shawn,” he says, and his heart skips a beat at the use of his first name. “Are you… afraid of your attraction to men?”

Shawn grimaces, but doesn’t flinch out of the other man’s embrace. That’s worth something, isn’t it?

“I have been,” he whispers. It feels so permanent once it’s out of his mouth.

“It’s alright,” Lassiter says. He’s rubbing circles on his upper arm.

“Sorry,” Shawn whimpers, dropping back into the crook of his neck. “It’s so messed up.”

“Shh.” The circles don’t stop. “It’s okay.”

Lassiter doesn’t understand, but the words are comforting nonetheless.

“Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted,” Lassiter says. He shrugs out of his suit jacket. “Do you mind if I take a shower?”

“You’re going to smell like a piña colada,” Shawn says.

Lassiter laughs. “What?”

“Pineapple and coconut. My shampoo’s pineapple.”

“I never would have guessed.”

\---

Later, they’re lying beside one another in Shawn’s bed. Shawn is on his back, staring up at the ugly drop ceiling. He turned off the lights fifteen minutes ago, but sleep has escaped him. Every time he shuts his eyes, he sees Lassiter staggering backward in his kitchen, shirt quickly staining red.

“Lassie,” he whispers. If the detective has already fallen asleep, he doesn’t want to disturb him.

“Hmm?”

He turns onto his side, facing Lassiter. He can just make out the shape of his nose in the dark. The glint of his eyes.

“I can’t sleep.”

He hears the rustling of the sheets as Lassiter rotates beside him. Mirroring him. He feels the other man’s hand reach for his under the covers. He squeezes, then lets go.

“Roll the other way. C’mere.” He turns Shawn into just the right position on his side, then spoons up behind him, arm thrown over his middle. Ghosts kisses on the back of his neck.

Sighing, Shawn finally lets his eyes close, concentrating on the feel of the other man’s lips.

This is okay. More than okay.

He wouldn’t rewind it even if he could.


End file.
